Belvedere listing seeks Marin record $50 million
- Tyler Callister
- May 5
- 5 min read
Updated: May 7
An eight-bedroom modernist estate atop Belvedere Island has hit the market at $50 million, making it the priciest listing in Marin County history.
The home at 20 Crest Road spans 9,170 square feet on two contiguous parcels totaling 0.91 acres. Listed privately as “The Crest of Belvedere” by Bill Smith and Ann Aylwin, a Compass-affiliated Belvedere couple who go by the Smith + Aylwin Team, the property includes 11 bathrooms, a pool, sport court and enough off-street parking for more than 12 cars.
A sale at the asking price would break the county’s record for most expensive home sale, set in 2015 when Belvedere’s Locksley Hall, just a half mile away on Golden Gate Avenue, sold for $47.5 million.
Belvedere’s original Victorian homes were built on the eastern flank of the island, overlooking the Belvedere Cove yacht harbor. As the San Francisco skyline evolved and the Golden Gate Bridge was built in the 1930s, views from the southern and western sides became highly desirable, with those at the top of the island claiming the ultimate vantage point.
Built in 1967 by architect William Wurster for Rita and Leonard M. Sperry Jr., a deputy attorney general of California who served under Edmund “Pat” Brown, the home is characterized by tall windows, a curving staircase and minimalist lines.
“It’s got huge views,” Smith said in an interview last week. “You can see the East Bay to Angel Island to the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. The Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito and Mt. Tamalpais.”
The home is an off-market listing, not publicly advertised on the Multiple Listing Service or real-estate websites, as high-end buyers often prefer it that way, Smith said.
“Buyers in this range like the idea of having something that hasn’t been exposed to the world,” he said.
The Sperrys sold the home in 1979 for $1.2 million, according to public records. Property records show it is now held by Tradco Barbados Inc., which acquired the home via a $0 grant deed from another entity, Billingborough Inc., in 1996. Smith said the current owners, whom he described as only the second family to hold the property, have used it as a gathering place rather than a full-time residence. The owners declined to comment through a long-term tenant.
The home and the adjacent lot at 18 Crest Road, which holds the sport court and has historically been considered part of the same property, underwent a $5 million remodel from 2012 to 2014. The owners decided to sell this year after the family expanded and their use of the home declined, Smith said.
So far, the home has drawn several buyer showings and agent previews, Smith said. One private event featured a real-estate economist speaking to invited luxury agents from around the Bay Area. Another event this month will bring members of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects to the home, where the architect behind the 2014 remodel, Robert Edmonds of Edmonds + Lee Architects, is expected to discuss the renovation and Wurster’s legacy.
“We want people to know it’s not just a house,” Smith said. “It’s got a history.”
A historic ‘masterpiece’
The home’s listing description calls the estate a “Modernist masterpiece.”
Wurster pioneered the “Bay Area Regional” style, a blend of modernism with the California landscape. He served as dean of the architecture departments at both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Berkeley. His best-known Bay Area projects include the adaptive reuse of San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square in the 1960s and the Gregory Farmhouse near Santa Cruz, as well as the Greenwood Common residential community in Berkeley. His firm also collaborated on the design of 555 California St., the 52-story former Bank of America tower in San Francisco’s Financial District. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 1969.
“Architecture is not a goal,” the estate’s description quotes Wurster as writing in 1956. “Architecture is for life and pleasure and work and for people. The picture frame, not the picture.”
The estate’s landscape was designed by Thomas Church, who pioneered modernism in landscape design. The original outdoor spaces feature terraces, patios, decks and balconies that descend into lawns, established plantings and winding pathways.
Inside, towering windows flood the home with light. The living room features “curving walls of glass showcasing sweeping views of the San Francisco Bay,” according to the estate’s description, with a large fireplace along one wall and a “retractable screen hidden in the ceiling above for movies and presentations.”
The kitchen and breakfast area are centered on a large quartz island, mosaic backsplash and high-end Sub-Zero, Wolf and Miele appliances. The kitchen is paired with a butler’s pantry that includes a second cooking station, while a separate work area connects to the attached two-car garage and storage. A nearby family room, flanked by walls of windows, opens onto a large view deck, as well as terraces, a pool and landscaped grounds below. The home’s elevator, which “services every level of the home,” is also in this central living area.
The middle floor contains six of the home’s eight bedrooms, along with one of two laundry rooms, and can be reached by either a curving staircase or the elevator. The primary suite occupies the home’s entire octagonal wing and includes a spa-like bath, large walk-in closet, fireplace and private deck. The five other bedrooms on the level are each described as having their own views and attached bath.
The estate also features a full built-in apartment with its own bedroom and bath, living room and private deck.
The listing joins a string of high-dollar real-estate transactions on the peninsula in recent years. In August 2025, billionaire designer Jony Ive purchased four Belvedere Island homes for a total of $73 million, including $43.5 million for the Locksley Hall mansion at 440 Golden Gate Ave. Half of Marin’s 10 most expensive home sales in 2025 were on the Tiburon Peninsula, including 34 Eucalyptus Road in Belvedere, which ranked fourth at $15 million; 275 Diviso St. in Tiburon, which ranked eighth at $13.22 million; and 8 Eucalyptus Road in Belvedere, which ranked 10th at $13 million.
For 20 Crest Road, Smith described the property’s privacy as “paramount for the buyer who wishes to remain isolated from the busy world.”
“It’s the overall thing — the view, size, seclusion,” he said. “And it’s been well maintained over all these years.”
Reach Belvedere, Strawberry and public-safety reporter Tyler Callister at 415-944-4627.